Gearing up for Nanowrimo!

I’m sure you’ve read about me talking about the National November Writing Month contest. Its a contest based around writing at least 50,000 words of a new novel within the month of November. Hence, the name. Its not exactly a national competition, there are people worldwide participating in this. Nanowrimo is all about giving you the permission to write crap because thats what everybody writes when they start. The majority of Nanowrimo participates are unpublished new writers. Some with jobs and kids as well. Nanowrimo is doable! If you want to participate, sign up and then let me know so I can add you to my buddy list.

Hemmingway: The first draft of anything is shit.

The point is to complete a first draft. You can’t edit if you don’t have words to edit, right?

For this competition, I’m planning on writing 100K. Two 50,000 worded novellas. Thats 3.3K of writing every day! Here’s the synopsi for both of them.

Yoshida Dorms
Genre: Mainstream Fiction

Yoshida Dorms, the hub of the creative types of Kyoto University which costs a mere 2,000 yen (20 USD) per month to live in. Needless to say, its a dilapidated dump constructed in the 1800s, smooshed between the hussle and bustle of Kyoto and modern life. Yoshida is a slice of a paradise for starving artists, writers, actors and musicians who work together in a communal life style through hard times. However, that paradise is threatened when Kyoto University wishes to demolish and uproot the problem causing students that live there. The next cheapest dorm costs are out of most price points for these artists. Out of desperation, they join together to stop Kyoto University from tearing down their home, their community, their way of life.

Blanket of Lies
Genre: Horror and Supernatural, Suspense and Thriller

Aberdeen Washington: a small town of fog, rain and a desperate population in a dying logging community. Enter Eddie Heathrowe and Clarissa Blanc. Eddie, a bored teenager in therapy for seeing things he shouldn’t see. Clarissa, popular yet questioned by the police over the suspicious death of one of her classmates. Their lives become entangled when the vengeful spirit of the dead classmate begins to haunt Clarissa. Forced to work together, their lies stack higher from ‘have you taken your medication today?’ to ‘where were you last night?’ Emotions rise with the number of spirits appearing and possessing fellow classmates and unexplainable phenomena threatens to consumes them and the town—–but not if they can help it.

As many previous participates have tried to update their fancy blogs on their ‘progress’ I’m just not going to kid myself. Don’t expect updates in November unless I’m procrastinating like crazy sauce. Most people I know will do updates for the first week and then fall silent as they become too busy trying to keep up with their word counts to make sure they finish in time. I’m going to be busy from day one. So I’m not going to be rude and get your hopes up just to be disappointed, ya?

Instead, I’m setting up a weekly virtual write cram-a-thon every Wednesday 7PM to Midnight PST through twitter using the hashtag #Nanocram so I hope to see you! And no, you do not need to be there for the entire session. Its just long for convenience and cramming as much word count as possible for that day.